Like this:

Today I was in Bello. Did some shopping and then headed home with the Baby. This is where serious Benching comes in. Church Street is the café precinct ( nouveau termino for 4 cafes in a row) and now features table and chairs and other modern additions but it retains the TABLES and BENCHES that go way back. Across the road from the cafes are the official chess tables. These are shaded, with chess board inlaid in the table. I’ve never seen a game of chess played on them. They are the HangOut and today the next generation of teenagers was doing some serious Hanging and Glowering. Good to see traditions continuing.

On the Precinct side of the street are the “tables and benches” where Chess is played. In amongst the “tables and chairs”. In this Pic, the use of the Bench across two populations is shown. The nearest is a reunion between former workmates. One has been busy with a new Baby and the other has been overseas. Beside them is a second bench population engaged in the chess game. ( I noted one of the players a little late. She had moved one café along and was playing at the next bench against a new contender).

Like this:

I had a couple of good experiences today. I had won a Yoghurt Maker from Kombu, the Bellingen Whole Foods Store and went to pick it up. Out the front is the bench in the photograph. A solid wooden bench. No arms. No back. Pure Bench.

I headed back down Hyde Street, and we picked up a few things in the IGA ( Independent Grocery Association) Store. I took Baby out the front and sat on the bench while Kati B came through the checkout. The street was busy. Its holiday time up here. Along came a beautiful smiling young woman. Maggie Q. Editor of BELLBOTTOM. She reached in her bag and there was my copy of Issue no 5. “ Hand delivered “ said she.

Recent Posts: the GEM COLLECTION 2018

“Melancholy, my old friend, visits frequent, once again.” ― Seth Grahame-Smith, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Source: FEBRUARY 18 2013 :“There is a life and there is a death, and there are beauty and melancholy between.” ― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942

‎"Sometimes we need to place love ahead of indiscriminate `factual honesty'. We cannot, under the guise of `perfect honesty', cruelly and unnecessarily hurt others. Always one must ask, `What is the best and most loving thing I can do?' LETTER, 1966. W.W.

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